Canaan Partners and Yahoo have teamed up to finance an Indian online matrimony firm operating a group of sites.

The two companies invested $8.6 million in BharatMatrimony group, with Canaan as the lead investor, its first after having just set up shop in India, writes ContentSutra. The investment is also Yahoo's first in India; Yahoo execs were in the country a couple of months ago. Canaan was the first investor in Match.com, in 1995.

Bharat Matrimony, founded in 1997, has been self-funded; it has helped arrange some half-million marriages online. The company manages a dozen or so matrimony portals aimed at users of various religions and languages (from Assamese to Urdu) in India.